DCCommuter

My crossposted response to your crosspost:


From a legal perspective, in many states cyclists do have the right of way at all trail crossings. If
a) a trail crossings has a crosswalk; and
b) your state has a law giving cyclists on sidewalks and crosswalks the "rights and duties" of pedestrians, as most do; and
c) your state gives the right of way to pedestrians at crosswalks

then cyclists have right of way at the trail crossing. There was recently a case in Virginia where this was litigated after a collision between a car and a cyclist at a trail crossing. The court ruled the cyclist had right of way, even though there was a stop sign on the trail. The reasoning was that cyclists have the "rights and duties" of pedestrians, and pedestrians have no duty to stop at stop signs. The only signal that pedestrians have a duty to stop for in VA is a "Don't Walk" sign.

As a practical matter, around here cars won't stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, let alone cyclists. The people that run the trails do everything they can to get cyclists to stop at crossings, because they know that cars can't be relied on. Recently, after a cyclist was killed at a local crossing, the cops were out patrolling the crosswalk for a few days. Instead of making sure that motorists stopped for the crosswalk, they were making cyclists dismount and walk and waving the cars through.